Do The Bulls Still Have Room To Run? Investment Conference Opens With Optimism

Don’t get too nervous that the bull market is five years old, because steady growth, low inflation and mild interest rates should allow for good stock performance in the near future, the head of Montgomery Securities says.

Thom Weisel delivered this upbeat outlook on the opening day of Montgomery’s five-day investment conference in San Francisco.

As founder and chief executive, Weisel addressed 2,000 money managers and institutional investors gathered in San Francisco to hear financial presentations from 233 publicly traded companies selected by Montgomery.

Weisel said continued economic growth, particularly in technology, communications and services, should produce earnings strong enough to sustain stock prices.

“You can screw up market timing,” Weisel said. “But if you’re right about growth,” stock investments should pay off in the long run.

Thomas Thornhill, Montgomery’s research director for technology industries, said high-tech systems like computers, software and networks account for about half of all capital spending in the United States.

He said U.S. corporations were beginning to replace older desktop computers with new machines running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows NT operating system on Pentium or Pentium Pro microprocessors from Intel Corp., a trend that favored both companies.

Other Bay Area companies should benefit from continued growth in computer networks, including Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Ascend Communications Inc. of Alameda and 3Com Corp. of Santa Clara, Thornhill said.

David Readerman, Montgomery’s Internet expert, revealed the results of a whimsical poll.

When asked which of five song titles best described the state of Internet deployment inside their own companies, 75 percent of respondents chose the Carpenters’ hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” while 12 percent selected the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA.”

Whimsy aside, the five-day conference gives public or soon-to-be-public companies a chance to tout their financials before Montgomery’s institutional investment clients, who collectively control about $4 trillion in assets.